A couple of points

Nevertheless, the interpretation of events the perpetrators of the attack will come away with is that Europeans can be bombed into throwing out their governments and replacing them with more pliable leaders.

Zapatero’s announcement of his intention to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq is a gigantic green light to future terrorist outrages. “Bomb us and we’ll cave!” is the message it sends, and the price to be paid is more such attacks in the runups to future elections. One doesn’t have to like Aznar or be a Bush-supporter to think this a terrible development.

Alan, what you say doesn’t change the fact that the message is still “bomb us”.

Alan, how is criminal (police) action going to deal with guerrilla warfare waged by ideological fanatics? You cannot stop a determined presidential assassin by rounding up a lot of suspects, because they are legion. Likewise determined terrorists. Did police action stop the IRA? No, it simply shifted its focus to the British mainland, which is too unwieldy to police against skilled operatives.

This is a war and it can only be won by denying the enemy all territory and logistical support, and, of course, killing its key leadership.

I am a Spanish citizen who voted for the Socialists (as I indicated in an earlier thread). I am glad that we finally dumped the PP and I am glad that the margin was clear. I was outraged that the PP jumped on the Madrid massacre as a blanket justification for all their policies, domestic and foreign, but that didn’t affect my vote because I had already cast it in an advance poll.

Still, this election leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth and I am greatly disappointed by Zapatero’s quick promise of withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq. We should not have supported the Iraq military adventure (in fact no Spanish troops were sent to fight) but supporting the creation of a non-Saddam regime, hopefully a democratic and responsible one, is an entirely laudible mission.

But most of the bitter taste in my mouth comes from the perception that Al Qaeda won the election for the Socialists. I hope it isn’t the case, but the fact is that the PP were ahead in the pre-election polls as late as last week (this despite our overwhelming opposition to the Iraq adventure), and unless the PP’s mishandling of the bombings’ aftermath is what caused the major shift, this cannot be a good thing. It means, as others have pointed out, that we have sent a very encouraging message to terrorists. We can argue that the exact causes of the electoral shift are still unknown and probably involve many factors, but the message that Al Qaeda and Islamists will take from all this will be quite simple: massive terrorism can sway European voters to change their government to one less hostile to their goals. My only hope is that Zapatero can quickly make it clear to the Islamists that they are very, very wrong.

I am not sure that I have seen evidence that anyone anywhere is in favor of “appeasing” Osama bin Laden. What some of us say is that if certain policies are wrong, we should change them whether or not bin Laden favors them as well. People all over the world feel a natural repugnance towards things like the Madrid bombings. To disabuse terrorists of any notion that bin Laden has won a victory in Spain, all the Socialists need to do is fight al Qaeda sanely – not by launching illegal wars or depicting a struggle between civilizations.

Alan, how is criminal (police) action going to deal with guerrilla warfare waged by ideological fanatics?

Al Qaeda isn’t practicing guerilla war, but terrorism. The best way to combat terrorism is in fact through police work.

You cannot stop a determined presidential assassin by rounding up a lot of suspects, because they are legion. Likewise determined terrorists.

Right. You need intelligence above all, which means that you need cooperation from lots of people. Do you get this by behaving in ways that most of the world rejects? No, you do not.

Did police action stop the IRA? No, it simply shifted its focus to the British mainland, which is too unwieldy to police against skilled operatives.

It’s widely acknowledged that the breakthrough in Northern Ireland came when the British government abandoned reliance on a solution based mainly on force, acknowledged Sinn Fein as a negotiating partner (however hard this may have been) and sought a political solution. I don’t suggest negotiation with Osama bin Laden, but I do think that recognition that the US policies he opposes are in fact disliked by most of the people in the Middle East is highly in order.

This is a war and it can only be won by denying the enemy all territory and logistical support, and, of course, killing its key leadership.

The Spanish bombings may well have been planned in Spain, or in Europe at least. What was Spain supposed to do, invade itself?

. . .I was driven to imagine that somebody had possession of an Osama bin Laden Want-O-Scope.

Yes, I have one.

“Zapatero’s announcement of his intention to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq is a gigantic green light to future terrorist outrages. “Bomb us and we’ll cave!” is the message it sends,”

Why does the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq have anything to do with the “war” against OBL?

1. There were no meaningful connections between the Iraq regime and OBL.

2. The only meaningful presence was not under the control of the Iraq regime, and the US declined to take action (Sebastion can wax eloquent here how the mighty US Army was intimidated to paralysis by a terrorist concentration larger than a camp)

3. Though I doubt they’ll do it, the standard craven Republican response is available to the socialists: withdrawing these troops concentrates forces where they’re needed, on the front lines.

I’m afraid Abiola’s analysis reveals that still, contrary to all evidence, he believes that the US government’s argument for the war in Iraq circa 1 year ago is pristine, inerrant, inviolable.

That’s crazy. People, we live in democracies. It does not follow that the existence of OBL logically forces a vote for the most reactionary election candidate. Do I have to point out that the fact that there is a *choice* is the most important difference between what we have, and what OBL wants?

First, it seems to be universally agreed, and was certainly believed by the PP government, that it would have electorally beneficial had it turned out that the bomb was planted by ETA. But the Aznar government was notable for its hardline stance against ETA. If the Spanish people were the cowards painted by their erstwhile admirers, this would make no sense.

I guess the unpopularity of the war combined with perhaps a sense that the govt was too quick to blame ETA might have had something to do with this. One thing that impressed the hell out of me was the mass response on the streets and demonstrations in favour of democracy after the attacks; I am unsure what they could said to have accomplished and it is possible to argue that they don’t mean much in themselves but for a nation to come out with this after a major terrorist attack, impresses me greatly. The high turnout must also have something to do with it as it tends to go against incumbents and Centre-Right parties.

Second (as far as I know), there has been no suggestion from the Socialists that Spanish troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan1. If the Spanish people are terrified of bin Laden and want to appease him, it seems strange to show this through continued backing of attempts to capture or kill him and prevent the restoration of the only government that’s ever openly embraced him.

This makes sense; I would also think that there might not be an opposition to giving backing to a UN-sanctioned force for Iraq or other forms of assistance to an elected Iraqi govt.

“Why does the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq have anything to do with the “war” against OBL?”

Perhaps you ought to ask the individual who made the proclamation that the attack on Spain was in retaliation for supporting America’s invasion of Iraq?

If I’m reading the warbloggers right, their conclusion seems clear: we need to elect a new Spanish people.

Iraq was not irrelevent to fighting terrorism (I’ll defend that to the grave)

Who’s grave? There are many thousands, and rising.

If you’re going to credit AQ with victory whenever they influence elections, then they already scored victory in 2002 when the Republicans were able to use 9/11 to turn an evenly divided populace slightly in their favor.
This whole business of basing your decisions on what the terrorists would think is the real cave-in. Get rid of a bad leader like Aznar and a horrible leader like Bush and AQ will be worse off.

The pseudo-Churchill crowd always makes me laugh. How about this for appeasement: your forces have already broken the state that protects your enemy; you have battled him once in a very inaccessble place in the mountains; you have failed to kill him; so you withdraw, let him go, decide not to worry about him any more, make up a bogus connection that you don’t even believe with another, vulnerable power; and as time passes, you invent stories about how you’ve destroyed 3/4ths of his forces.
I’d call that feebleness masquerading as strength. The ‘brilliant military work” of Rumsfeld, et al., in invading Iraq seems to have rather neglected the forces in their rear, constituted by Al Qaeda — but of course, they never believed their lies, anyway. They knew there was no connection between Iraq and Osama bin Laden. They knew that was trash for public consumption.
Result: the network has ramified. The supposed leaders of the free world, Bush, et al., have left the people of the free world more vulnerable, not less, to terrorist attack. When the people respond by kicking their hind ends out of office, it is considered appeasement.
No, it isn’t appeasement. It is being fired. For incompetence.
When Carter bungled the hostages, the networks all made it into a count: day number x of the hostage crisis.
By my count, it is day number 931 since Bush promised to bring Osama in dead or alive. So where is he?

Despite what the bush administration wants me to believe and despite what bush’s critics want me to believe, I think bin laden is most likely dead; if he isn’t, what would explain his sudden video shyness following the bombing of tora bora? I don’t understand these feeble audio recordings and letters.

Did someone break his video recorder?

There might be another explanation but the only one that makes any sense is that he is so frail, ill or injured that he doesn’t want to appear this way to his enemies or followers.

I think Maurnaisky (?spelling) is right. Terrorists will attack us no matter what we do or don’t do. It just depends on who they are mad at (or can attack easily) at that moment. Trying to analyze mad people for motives is mad itself.

Williestyle: You took my remark out of context. I’m defending “to the grave” not the decision to go to war, but the fact that the war is not irrelevant to combating terrorism. Now that you mention it though, I’d defend the former assertion similarly.

I strongly disagree that the moral burden of war should rest solely on the pro-war camp. Those that oppose a war are burdened with the consequences of their actions as well, and those may be less, equally or more disastrous. To take an extreme example, if those that opposed Vietnam invading Cambodia in 1979 had their way, Cambodia would have remained under Khmer Rouge control. So don’t tell me that the anti-war crowd needn’t be morally burdened with decisions of war and peace. Only the ignorant and nihilistic can claim to be free from heart-wrenching decisions.

And no, I don’t have to leave dramatic proclamations to others if I mean what I say, and I mean what I say. To the grave, then.

(On a side-note, I’d like to point out that “to the grave” is a common phrase used for emphasis, and isn’t always meant literally… just checking)

Talk is cheap if you ignore the fact that the war on terror is as much an ideological war as it is a physical one — both of which are crucial.

Thankfully though, talk is not cheap, and so there are ways of making and emphasizing a point that do not require strapping on an AK-47. I’ll that to the grave too, thank you.

No Preference, the word “territory” now seems ill-chosen. What I mean is guerrilla territory – as commonly accepted, in the heart of communities. Fish in an ocean is the traditional terminology.

By bringing about democratic changes and the decline of tyrants in the Middle East, that territory is systematically denied to people like al-Qaeda.

Terrorism is indeed a tactic of guerrilla warfare, as I would have thought you were aware. Of course you want to deny it is warfare, but ETA, IRA, and others haver used it to wage war against the state.

This notion that somehow this is just a criminal act, once again regrettably stated by Javier Solana today, seeks to divorce terrorism from its political and ideological motivation in order to pretend it can be policed. I

t can’t and the geo-political strategy is demonstrating that fighting terror may not be cheap, but it’s a damn sight cheaper than before the Iraq war, because the Pakistanis, the Saudis and to some extent the Indonesians are perforce helping squeeze out the jihadists in their territories.

What put the IRA off to a large degree (I’m not saying you are entirely wrong about the attrition) was the negative effect of the Real IRA Omagh incident and other atrocities on civil support at home and abroad.